April 22, 2010: NASA's best-recognized, longest-lived, and most prolific space observatory zooms
past a threshold of 20 years of operation this month. On April 24, 1990, the
space shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched toREAD: Junior version of this articleLearn about this story in the Star Witness, a science newspaper available on our sister site, Amazing Space. deploy the Hubble Space
Telescope into a low Earth orbit. What followed was one of the most remarkable
sagas of the space age. Hubble's unprecedented capabilities made it one of the
most powerful science instruments ever conceived by humans, and certainly the
one most embraced by the public. Hubble discoveries revolutionized nearly all
areas of current astronomical research, from planetary science to cosmology.
And, its pictures were unmistakably out of this world. This brand new Hubble
photo is of a small portion of one of the largest seen star-birth regions in the
galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the
wall of the nebula. The scene is reminiscent of Hubble's classic "Pillars of
Creation" photo from 1995, but is even more striking in appearance. The image
captures the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being
eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also
being pushed apart from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets
of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks like arrows sailing
through the air.

NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) are celebrating Hubble's
journey of exploration with this stunning new picture, online educational
activities, an opportunity for people to explore galaxies as armchair
scientists, and an opportunity for astronomy enthusiasts to send in their own
personal greetings to Hubble for posterity.